127988-power-creep-and-the-future-of-solo-and-small-group-content
Content ---- ---- ---- ---- I have no problem with the raid progression, but there should be some sort of group/solo progression as well. It doesn't have to be as high (just look at Vet Adventure -> Vet Dungeons, that's a 3 item level increase aside from the iLevel 61 epics), but I would like to have a similar progression system for that content that raids have. | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- Just make the dungeon loot table not drop a full set of gear for each class/role and make the stuff have sub-prime optimization so it's an upgrade over T1 dungeon loot, but not GA loot, then suddenly GA isn't obsolete. Having a second tier of dungeons is a great idea, both for catch-up purposes and for longevity of small-group content. | |} ---- But that's essentially what vet SSM and Protogames already give you: purple gear that is an upgrade over "regular" dungeon purples, but not as good as GA. To add a half-step set in between would be pointless, since the actual stat difference would be so minimal as to make it not worth the effort. Edited June 15, 2015 by Isonox | |} ---- Downscaling is perfectly fine if its optional as i suggested . You simply opt in to have your gear scaled down and receive more/better rewards for doing said content . | |} ---- While I like this as long as it's optional, there would be no new content and no sense of progression. | |} ---- ---- Depends, if a new expansion hits I want a complete reset, at least at the next max level. But I am talking about a progression in the current content. For raids we have a "normal" progression. Raid 1 -> Raid 2 -> Raid 3. Because those are raids they are bigger than dungeons and also harder, they last longer and it takes longer to get gear. However, for small group content we currently have Veteran Adventures -> Veteran Dungeons (or because of Shiphands, Adventures are basically irrelevant by now). After that... well, we have Ultimate Protogames and Bay of Betrayal, but that's not enough to have a full second tier of small group content. The idea would be that by the time a third raid tier hits, small group content would already have maybe 2/4 adventures and/or dungeons which drop loot on par with the first raid tier and continue to release the rest over the next couple months. So by the time all adventures/dungeons of the second tier are released, the first raid tier becomes "obsolote", but that would take several months and in the long run it would probably help to gear raiders to progress. There could also be small tweaks in gear, something simple like the dungeon items being a little bit weaker or having 1-2 rune slots less so raiders would still have a little bit of an edge. But some sort of progression would be nice, and for that to happen the gear must become stronger, so at one point dungeons basically need to drop items on par with the first raid. Even the solo content with the new level 50 zones and the conclusion in OMNICore-1 has already a gear progression. | |} ---- ---- Part of me has always wished this wouldn't happen every time. But the gear ilevel increases coupled with level cap increases make it enevitable. Mudflation is just one of the things you have to put up with in MMOs. Trust me, this is a topic people have done the math of multiple times, and the only resolution that's been found is similar to what Blizzard did in WoW. Scale all previous content tight and linear and let the new expansion do it's normal thing, upon next major expac release, rinse and repeat. | |} ---- ---- ---- Okay, I have to admit that since I left soon after release I didn't know the SSM loot was also buffed up (especially since it still is part of the attunement, I thought it would still be in par with the other 3). But what if another dungeons gets released? Add it to the existing ones, or make it harder and buff up the loot, even if it would then surpass GA loot itemlevel wise? I am for the latter. | |} ---- I've always been under the opinion that over the life of an MMO, questing and world content retains it's greatest value, as new players will still experience that as they level. (Level cap daily areas aside.) I'd love to see something done to retain the value of old raids, as they do take a crazy amount of work. Not recycle them in place of, but find a way to still utilize them beyond fluff rewards. | |} ---- Well, let me just say... the people that are here and like WildStar? Many of them are here because we can't stand Guild Wars 2. It's a polar opposite, and while some players may enjoy playing whatever, there's a distinct line between here and there, and designs there will not work in WildStar. Scaling down will not work here. Players that like progression do not like downscaling. Also, as an aside... it's interesting that ArenaNet never announces how many players they have. Anyone can sell boxes. But how many are active players? | |} ---- Guild Wars 2 is easily the second most popular MMO ever in the west. While WoW goes through cycles of gaining and losing players with every patch - Guild Wars 2 has remained a steady beast of success. So I do not know where you get this idea that downscaling is generally reviled. You revile it. Several million potential other Wildstar players love it. In WoW, easily 95% of all content ever made for that game is now semi-obsolete. You level past it and gear past it so fast you barely see it. Of that, half or more is completely obsolete: you do a zone at its starting level and before you are halfway through the quests are no longer giving experience... and raids... the gear they drop is worse than the starter quest gear of the zones of the same level that happened to be the starter spots of the next expansion. So Blizzard pays a LOT of money to keep servers and data in its database... that has no purpose. In Guild Wars 2... because downscaling was done with gear progression in mind, and when you downscale you get gear relevant to your level and if max relevant to progression... every single zone and dungeon in the game is getting used by hordes of players ever day. Three years in, and not one piece of the game has become a 'dead zone'... And there are a few million players in there using it. That is what I call a model for success. | |} ---- ---- This does however create a true end game. What will you do if you have the best gear, wait till the next raid comes out, level an alt? | |} ---- Yes. Ha, I'm not even done with raiding, I think 9 guilds have cleared raiding....a whole 180 poeple(not counting subs) in this huge game. This game is about progression, in GW2, you don't really "progress" by going back. IMHO it's a lazy way to keep content there and have poeple redo stuff instead of put in new content. I have leveled to max level in GW2, than got bored for their "endgame". I already spent time in a zone and leveled it and "beat it" that why do I want to go back? If you go down to the level for the plac,e why even have levels in the game? | |} ---- why have level? because you cannot go to "next" zone without having enough levels. but with scaling you can always go back. the previous content is not rendered useless by powercreep. you can still run some instances with a fun challenge to it (and maybe can have rewards that you need too!) it makes the game less linear and more about "options". in wildstar once you hit the raids you never go back. so you raid and raid and raid until you burn out. and a LOT burnt out. hey. dude. just look at the Gw2's forums and see the life over there. its a graveyard here in comparison. and you CAN have downscaling with progression. downscaling only makes the previous content not a faceroll and more replayable, but you still need to progress to be able to do the next tier of content. there is absolutely no reason to not have this in a modern mmo. Edited June 18, 2015 by Chillia | |} ---- The players that hate GW2 hate it because of that reason - there is no sense of power or progression. So do you spend all day every day in Queensdale re-running events? | |} ---- Well let me be clear before I get into my rant, I was super stoked for Guild Wars 2, sat through their crappy launch week but got to max level fairly quickly while still enjoying the story. Was looking forward to the high level group content, until that is, I discovered there was no high level group content. It was instances with boss fights where you could res and run back during the fight so you could just kite everything to death. Nothing had mechanics. There were no tanks, no healers. GW2 was a game all about the individual. Which is a fine structure for something like PvP, however that game had NO meaningful PvE content at all. They may have added in challenging content at this point, but without the institution of a true Healer/Tank in the game, there is a limit on what they could actually achieve. It isn't a good game to use as an example in comparison with Wildstar. Our closest comparison is WoW (Extremely Health), and Rift (Extremely Health with their swap to a similar F2P System Wildstar is trying.) Raiding in Rift and WoW is a vertical climb, with breaks in level separating content by expansion. Could they find a way to keep GA Relevant? I suppose. However doing so would be so forced. Most people have at the very least seen all or most of GA at this point, and have at least stepped foot into DS, and lets be very clear. The burn out wasn't from raiding being the only thing to do at max level. The burn out was that attuning was a long, arduous process, and DS was extremely hard at launch. It was a 40m raid where you couldn't really afford deaths if you wanted to execute properly. Managing and scheduling 40 people still isn't easy, so them shifting to strictly 20 mans was wise. I hope to god they never go the route of Flex of 10 man raiding. That was the true death of WoW's raiding being anything worth while. Guild Wars 2 doesn't have true raiding, their large group content is faceroll, and just because you have more bodies, it doesn't mean you have a real raid. It is a game that requires little to no coordination at all. Will leave it at that, I am just an extremely disappointed fan. Rift has done very well with his raiding system, they have difficult, large group raid content that is actually arguably more difficult than almost all the raid content in WoW. Some of the mechanics in that game are very intense, I know a lot of people want to knock the game because it went F2P and it is a grindy leveling process, however the max level is rather rewarding. WoW gives us possibly the best example of Downscaling, and keeping old raid content relevant not really being a viable or functional idea. How long was Siege of Orgrimmar relevant? A year and a half? People got bored of it and didn't want to do it, and I've never really wanted to go back to any raid in a game after I've farmed it honestly. Not even if it was upscaled to be difficult or rewarding on a gear level. It does eventually get very boring, becausethe dance is the same. Raiders want to learn new, more intense, more complex dances. Its what we do. | |} ---- ---- Downscale raids? Than don't need to downscale, just wear more crappy gear. There's your downscaling | |} ---- ----